Sanyo ICC-800

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Sanyo entered into the calculator market very late: their first transistorized calculator was announced in October 1966 (DK-141). Using american-made integrated circuits they developed some models for exporting them to foreign countries. World’s first, Sanyo used LSI circuits in 1968, and after starting production of nickel-cadmium rechargeable batteries, they introduced the first battery-operated portable calculator (ICC-82D) in May 1970. Its design was similar to state-of-the-art portable cassette players in that time. At a result of development of the japanese background industry, next year a full japanese-made calculator model was announced (ICC-800), and it was followed by several models in desktop and pocket size too.

Its design was almost identical to ICC-82D, and the operation is very similar to the portable cassette players: the window in front of the display operates the same way as a cassette deck. Several Hitachi and Toshiba ICs were used in the machine, the display consists of Sanyo’s Eightron gas discharge tubes similar to american Burroughs’ Panaplex style displays but digits were separated to single tubes. The ICC-800’s operation was very similar to its contemporary models, so it has only fixed point modes in the registers too, so calculation with very small and large numbers can results very inaccurate answers. The constant register can be switched on or off during calculations. It is important to note, the leading zeroes were suppressed because of decreasing power consumption.